Artwork © Eric N. Peterson

 

Department of War

Each day dread digs in,
the beast beset on all
that once was sacred,
reverts to baser instincts,
destroys our dreams
and the fragile hope
in a future no longer
possible, backslides
against progress,
ends systems built
over centuries in
mere months.

 

America
for Langston Hughes

Let America become America,
the one promised in our mythos,
the shining beacon on the hill,
not this reeking cesspool.

Let us have flowers in the snow,
not the lifeblood of innocents,
not the terror of secret police,
nor more masked men brutalizing.

Let us provide a worldly example,
not be spoken of in hushed voices,
not be known as thief and bully,
nor the unwelcome police force.

Let us be the storied force for good,
not the sad joke to the world,
not the enemy at the gates,
nor the boogieman in the dark.

But America hasn’t ever been
and may soon cease to be.

 

Emily Jo Scalzo holds an MFA in fiction from California State University-Fresno. Their work has appeared in various magazines including Midwestern Gothic, Mobius: The Journal of Social Change, Blue Collar Review, and others. Their first chapbook, The Politics of Division (2017), was awarded honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Book Awards in 2018.

Eric N. Peterson is from Atlanta, Ga. He’s been drawing cartoons all his life. He leans towards the absurd, imaginative, and the surreal, as that’s where all the flavor is.